UK Politics Thread (Part 4)

[Redbj]

how do you know they were on instagram?

[redalways]

Because I avoided them and saw what they were browsing when they were at the next red light?

[Mascot]

@jaffod

@Mascot

I believe people like Trump and Farage, should not have been tolerated. They have been platformed and exposed, and we are now at the point where truly vile opinions and behaviours that would have been given very short shrift a decade ago, are now treated as mainstream

The world is a different place to what it was a decade ago.

People like Trump and Farage are a result of that change, not the cause.

Fwiw I don’t consider myself to be left or right but I always find it strange when people who clearly come across as left state certain people “should not have been tolerated”.

Around the late 00’s and early 10’s Farage was given a platform well beyond that which his status deserved. As the leader of UKIP - a party which at that time was pretty irrelevant - he was unnecessarily platformed by the BBC and others, and allowed to spout his drivel and raise his profile.

At the time he led a party with no MPs and a minuscule vote share, he was, by some distance the politician with the most Question Time appearances. That is a big part in his he was able to gain traction in the UK.

He was treated as a curiosity, a source of good content, and now we’re stuck with him.

[Mascot]

@RedWhippet

@Mascot

The incident that appears to have started Linehan’s obsession with Trans rights is the IT Crowd episode with the trans women in it, the fact that she used to be a man is played for laughs, and it hasn’t aged well.

Linehan reacted badly (on Twitter, where else) to suggestions that the episode is transphobic, and it all seems to have escalated from there.

It wasn’t so much that it aged badly, it’s that it wasn’t particularly well written in the first place. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Comedians are allowed leeway for jokes to fall flat.

It was his behaviour afterwards that caused him trouble. It wasn’t even the transphobia that caused the problems but his behaviour in publishing private pictures of women he found on dating sites that he didn’t regard as being feminine enough. Really just boorish misogyny but enough to cause him problems with the law.

I used to follow him on Twitter and I genuinely think he had a breakdown of some sort. It’s a great pity as I still regard him as one of the greatest comedy writers of our generation.

He definitely had a breakdown, and I think the cause of it was too much Twitter. He was a very early adopter, and has described as being an intrinsic part of his life.

If you are so embedded in that ecosystem, that Wild West of discourse which is so far removed from the normal civility of life, then you probably don’t see anything wrong with (for example) creating a fake trans identity to infiltrate a trans dating app, and then then using that information to out trans people in public and harass them.

[RedWhippet]

@Mascot

you probably don’t see anything wrong with (for example) creating a fake trans identity to infiltrate a trans dating app, and then then using that information to out trans people in public and harass them.

That wasn’t even the worst of it. There was one picture that he posted which he had found on a regular dating site that he claimed was really a man trying to trick people. It didn’t stay up for long and I think it may have been the cause of one of his Twitter bans.

It’s similar to some of the rows about female boxers which become deeply misogynistic pile-ons because a woman, assigned female at birth, isn’t pretty enough for their liking.

As for Linehan, I think he is in a state of denial. I read an except of his autobiography which was published in an Irish newspaper and his version of events were wildly different from what most people witnessed.

It’s sad, because he is a genuinely gifted writer, not just some outrage grifter.

[cynicaloldgit]

Reform UK a ‘far-right and racist party’, says largest teaching union

Got to love this bit:

Farage described Kebede as “a self-declared Marxist … someone who is absolutely determined that our children should be poisoned at school, their minds should be poisoned about everything to do with this country”.

The irony…

[Mascot]

@RedWhippet

It’s sad, because he is a genuinely gifted writer, not just some outrage grifter.

I think he is a case study of what too much Twitter does to your brain.

I saw a critique of him that went into his Twitter use, and there were spells where he was literally on Twitter for 18 hours a day.

[cynicaloldgit]

Plenty going on today…

Gender critical campaigners win at UK supreme court over definition of woman

This is going to be popular… Not.

[Mascot]

@cynicaloldgit

Plenty going on today…

Gender critical campaigners win at UK supreme court over definition of woman | Transgender | The Guardian

This is going to be popular… Not.

It’s an absolutely absurd decision that is going to create many more problems than it solves.

[redalways]

I can understand the legal reasoning, but the main question after this is, does anyone trust the Starmer government to do the right thing here?

[Mascot]

@redalways

I can understand the legal reasoning, but the main question after this is, does anyone trust the Starmer government to do the right thing here?

I don’t think there is a right thing for Starmer to do.

This issue is so unsuitable for being dragged through the courts. There is no conclusive right/wrong, and no way any government can legislate to ‘protect female only spaces’.

[Dane]

This issue will trundle on.
The losing side will always maintain that the decision is wrong, and demand further hearings or judgements.
Bit like the Scottish and Brexit referendums.

[Mascot]

@Dane

This issue will trundle on.
The losing side will always maintain that the decision is wrong, and demand further hearings or judgements.
Bit like the Scottish and Brexit referendums.

The Gender Critical crowd are entitled to campaign for what they want, and use the courts if that’s appropriate, but the valedictory language they have used in commentating on their win reveals a nasty, spiteful edge to their opinions. Talking about the law confirming ‘reality’ and tackling ‘delusional thinking’ is just really shitty, and unnecessarily hurtful.

It really shows where their heads are at. We’re talking about a law trying to arbitrate between the rights of one set of human beings over the rights of another set of human beings, and the end result is that one of those sets of human beings is going to be legally discriminated against.

It seems like the victors are now enjoying the win, but also the opportunity to really put the boot in.

[El-Cuchillero]

Anyone read Fergal Kinney’s nonsense in Tribune?

I didn’t. I quit after the first paragraph. Can these pricks write one single article without invoking John fucking Lennon?

[Dane]

Fairly accurate.

[Noo_Noo]

This is a topic I’m way out of my depth with (one of many) but seeing the comments on line following the ruling is incredibly sad.

Honestly I hate and despair at what the world has become. So much ill informed opinion driving hatred and division.

Cyclists are honestly the tip of the iceberg. It feels like a left vs right war is coming.

[Dane]

Who the fuck dreams these things up